Another monotonous drone insists that we accept science's guilt prior to presentation of any evidence:

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Glen Davidson Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

October 6th, 2007 at 12:44 pm Glen Davidson, I wonder why you’re protesting so furiously, without firsthand knowledge of this movie’s content?

I wonder why you’re coming up with false claims about what I’m doing. I’m responding to a whole lot of unfounded attacks, essentially ad hominem fallacies, upon science and its practitioners, and have never pretended to be addressing the movie.

It seems odd to me that you’ve elected yourself the only “truly enlightened” intellectual here.

It seems to me that you have nothing worthwhile to bring against what I’ve written, hence you are out to malign someone who has done what you cannot, actually discuss the issues raised at this blog in an intellectual manner.

Do you realize that you’ve already posted 6 times in this thread alone — and the movie doesn’t come out for another 4 months?

Do you realize that you haven’t actually addressed any of the substance of what I’ve written? Not surprising, because pro-ID folk have a knack for ignoring the need for evidence, substantive reasoning, etc.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the promo material for this movie suggests that it’s about “closed minds”

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, its a rather simple fact that this particular blog entry is attacking and misrepresenting evolutionary ideas themselves, as well as bringing up a whole lot of canards about “persecution” without even a feint toward supplying any evidence that this is so.

— not so much a debate about the details of Creation — but a true disclosure of those too BIGOTED to consider any other possibilities, or deeper discussion.

Apparently your beef with me is that I don’t accept their completely unsupported assertions. You also seem to fail to recognize what I’ve in the main discussed, which was the lack of honesty in this blog, as well as how very wrong Ben Stein is to attack the Enlightenment. Especially since the Enlightenment-influenced societies were the ones who fought off Hitler and the rest of the largely anti-Enlightenment Nazis. I also bothered with the abysmal nonsense from “Prof” and the ad hominems of “Galactic” (supposing they are not the same person).

Is that the type of scientific discovery we should embrace?

Is your unquestioned belief in the veracity of these people anything I should embrace?

Should details that conflict with our belief system be hidden?

The details are hidden, should they in fact exist. I wouldn’t have thought that this vital fact would be missed by you, but apparently it was. Ruloff can present actual evidence for his claims, and I will be happy to consider it. These people haven’t done so, but apparently think we’re supposed to take it all on faith.

— even if empirical scientific data backs up someone’s claims?

Bring in the empirical data, why don’t you? That’s our complaint, that no one from your side ever does, least of all this blog.

Should those scientists be ridiculed or shunned for expanding our horizons to other possibilities?

They’ve been ridiculed for bypassing the processes that vet science and make it into a worthwhile endeavor. And we’re still waiting for any evidence in favor of ID, as I’ve mentioned.

Should the status quo be maintained — just to keep the money (grants,etc.) flowing into universities?

Should you drone on and on about a “conspiracy” for which you lack even a scintilla of evidence?

In case you haven’t come to grips with this reality, your knowledge of Darwinism is also a “belief system” — with preconceived biases,

Another mind-numbing repetitive talking point from someone who seems not even to recognize the need to back up his charges. The fact that IDists chant this illegitimate claim is no reason why we should adopt it.

that make the pieces fit (for you).

Gee, yes, that’s what theories are about, fitting the evidence together. I’d like to see ID do that, or for you whiners to come up with evidence for your conspiracy theory.

Your adamant opposition to Believers isn’t proving anything — in fact, you highlight quite well what this movie is about (e.g. you’re a bully).

The real bully just calls the guy who demans evidence a “bully”. Learn something about science, why don’t you, and quit insisting that you have the right to force your ideas into science without providing any kind of evidence in favor of it.

If someone knows deep in their heart that God exists, your pompous arguments are not going to make a difference.

Your bullying and name-calling isn’t going to do anything to persuade anyone with any intellectual honesty. Besides, if you were intellectually honest you wouldn’t imply that I’ve been arguing against God at all. It’s amazing just how lacking in honesty most (at least most who comment) on your side is.

Please wait for the movie.

Right, I’m supposed to wait for the movie, while Stein and the producers malign those on the science side without presenting any sort of evidence.

There’s plenty of time for mankind to solve this puzzle. For now, maybe we should just be talking about whether people are being open to honest, complete discussions?

Considering your lack of honesty, yes, I think that I’ve been aiming at the main issue, the lack of honesty on the part of ID and its proponents.

…or is “hatred” the new code word for “scientific knowledge”?

I guess that IDists like you think that hatred is a substitute for the scientific process and rational discussion.

I found your comments to be shrill, accusatory, and without substance.

<blockquote>I was hoping to have someone engage ideas with me in a thoughtful manner. I was trying to look at the way scientific knowledge is gained, the process by which it happens, not at any specific issue—</blockquote>

Then I think that you should have written your post in a thoughtful manner, and not with a lot of unwarranted accusations.

<blockquote>I’m sorry you didn’t quite catch that point and instead primarily went on a rant against pro-ID people (the pagans storming the gates)</blockquote>

It's a shame that you don't deal honestly with what I wrote, but instead have to set up a strawman instead. I barely wrote about ID people, I addressed your points at post #54.

<blockquote>and wrote a passionate defense of evolution (as if it needed another one).</blockquote>

I did not write a passionate defense of evolution, I wrote about science and how evolutionary theory fits in with the normal acceptance procedures in science. Rather than engaging with such substantive considerations, you simply accuse.

<blockquote>ID is just the current hot example by which to reflect on science as a field and epistemology. I never said I was pro-ID,</blockquote>

And I never said that you were pro-ID, so quit implying that I did. Only in your imagination did I "rant" against ID, and it appears that you either could not or would not read what I wrote competently.

<blockquote>and in fact, I am not in the ID camp at all.</blockquote>

Non sequitur.

<blockquote>My intention was not to challenge evolution or ID but to pose a wider challenge of a general depiction of science as evidenced by the language of the anti-ID posters.</blockquote>

Yes, and that is what I addressed, the lack of any meaningful knowledge about science and of the philosophy of science in your first post.

<blockquote>As someone who has spent my adult life as a scientist, I can hardly be seen as someone out to destroy it</blockquote>

Why not? Behe's out to destroy it, in essence if not in intention.

<blockquote>—I’m sorry you only have 2 categories in your world: enemy and proselyte.</blockquote>

I'm sorry that you have only two ways of dealing with someone who engaged your claims with knowledge and intelligence, with accusation and with wholly untrue claims.

<blockquote>I can think of another arena where anyone who questions is the enemy and only those who uncritically accept the view of the faithful are accepted.</blockquote>

Apparently you're speaking of your world. You haven't clue about myself, any more than you know how to discuss basic issues of science.

<blockquote>My previous post contained several controversial claims about how science operates, but they are not mine – they’re Kuhn’s.</blockquote>

Oh, I see, I'm supposed to believe you because you have adopted dogma from an authority. No way I'm playing that game.

<blockquote>You are obviously familiar with his work, and have found it unconvincing.</blockquote>

Of course I find it unconvincing. He's in an analytical tradition that I have never thought much of, nor do I find Popper to be very impressive.

<blockquote>If you have compelling rebuttals of Kuhn’s claims, please present them and stipulate whether they are your ideas or someone else’s so that I may read the original criticism.</blockquote>

The fact of the matter is that Kuhn wants us to suppose that "paradigms" can be, and are, irreducibly different from each other. He writes:

<blockquote>I do, in short, really believe some--though by no means all--of the nonsense attributed to me. The heavens of the Greeks were irreducibly different from ours. The nature of the idfference is the same as that Taylor so brilliantly describes between the social practices of different cultures... ...In neither can it be bridged by description in abrute data, behavioral category.

Thomas Kuhn. <b>The Road Since Structure</b>. Eds. James Conant & John Haugeland. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. p. 220</blockquote>

If one considers Aristarchus's heliocentric model, the Pythagorean cosmic model, and the sense that some ancients had that the sun is a burning fire (not true, but probably the best guess at the time), I fail to see the irreducible differences. Copernicus appealed to Aristarchus as a predecessor, which almost certainly carried part of the weight of his argument.

Kuhn overemphasizes the breaks in science, too much ignoring the large amount of continuity in it. Evolution builds upon artificial selection, genealogical knowledge, and especially upon the taxonomy of Linnaeus and later taxonomists. General relativity and quantum mechanics both build upon Newtonian physics, and end up subsuming its claims into their own.

These are mostly my own arguments, though I they echo, or are echoed by, a physics teacher that I had who taught Kuhn and other philosophers of science. He asked if I agreed with Kuhn, I said "No," and gave my reasons (continuity of methods, especially), and he concurred. Others in the class were surprised, as they considered Kuhn to be the unquestioned voice of science philosophy as you seem to do.

<blockquote>Your comments are disturbing because they imply that the Philosophy of Science (as a field) trashed Kuhn’s ideas long ago, ran back and picked up the torch of the Enlightenment, and then proceeded as if 200+ years of thought never occurred.</blockquote>

No, you misunderstand that as much as anything. Kuhn was only partly accepted by scientists. Many scientists and philosophers disagreed with Kuhn, as one may see in the Kuhn quote above (he's there responding to claims that his ideas are nonsense). He seems to have declined in popularity recently as well, at least in science and in philosophy.

<blockquote>If you’ve studied philosophy a “great deal,” then you should be warier about claiming mass agreement on such issues as Kuhn’s idiocy.</blockquote>

If you claim to be able to read and write well enough to be a scientist, you should not ascribe to me such dishonesties as the statement above. I didn't write anything like that, and I suspect that even you know it.

<blockquote>My good friend and philosophy professor assures me there is no such universal agreement on that question.</blockquote>

Since that wasn't the question, so what? Try to stay on topic, and actually respond to what I write instead of what you dream that I wrote.

What is more, I was not aware that the "dogma" to which you referred was Kuhn's terminology. "Dogma" has an entirely different connotation in Kuhn's writing than it does in these discussions, and you terribly confuse the issues when you pretend that "dogma" means the same in this context as in Kuhn's writings, regardless of how much I disagree with Kuhn (he'd never confuse the terminology here like you did).

<blockquote>And I don’t think she would invite me to talk to her philosophy class about Kuhn’s critique of science if this were the case.</blockquote>

And I think that is totally irrelevant to the issues, which you continue not to discuss.

<blockquote>For the sake of this discussion and its ramifications for society as a whole, take off your combat helmet and try communicating with me instead if you have significant and thoughtful (and original) criticisms to contribute to this important discussion.</blockquote>

Sorry, your projection is the one to whom you are addressing those remarks. I did not come in accusing people of exhibiting "breathtaking ignorance" like you did. What you wanted to do was to trash a whole lot of people whom you don't know without any evidence, while proclaiming your superiority.

<blockquote>You will get no ad hominem attacks from me.</blockquote>

You began with ad hominem attacks.

<blockquote>I’m offering the chance to have a REAL discussion on this topic with a scientist who knows a little philosophy and cares a great deal about these issues.</blockquote>

It's certainly not easy to believe you after you've implied that I suggested that you're an IDist, when I never did any such thing, and that I "ranted" against IDists, when I barely even discussed them in my post (#54). Then the implication that I had said that the field of science philosophy at large had concluded that Kuhn awas an idiot is another unwarranted ad hominem attack by implication. I require far more honest responses than the one you've made here before I begin to treat them as anything but hostile polemicists.

<blockquote>I’m not interested in “he’s an idiot and I’m right b/c…” posts that merely attack the opposing side w/o engaging questions.</blockquote>

You're the one who didn't engage my arguments. I responded to your claims, so I don't appreciate the false implication that I did otherwise. Can you ever leave off the unfair and untrue attacks?

<blockquote>I (following Kuhn) never claimed that science does not use scientific methods.</blockquote>

I never said that you claimed that. I pointed to the proper methods used in the adoption of Darwin's ideas, which you had denied. Rather than engaging what I've written, however, you have done virtually nothing but attack strawmen of your own.

<blockquote>Rather, I question, as Kuhn did, what the nature of scientific methods is because my experience practicing science bears little resemblance to the naïve comparison-with-nature description that is invariably presented to the general public.</blockquote>

It's not a bad description of science for the general public.

I do mention philosophical issues often enough, and too often am accused of "writing long" or some other supposed sin.

<blockquote>To take just one example, why do I keep hearing from public defenders of science that falsifiability is a definitive boundary between science and non-science when it was shown long ago that, as such a definitive boundary, falsifiability fails and when my own experience as a scientist confirms that failure? </blockquote>

I mention falsifiability occasionally, but primarily as shorthand for issues that are far more complicated than that. Most of the time when a hypothesis lacks falsifiability, it turns out not to be science in any normal sense of the term. However, I prefer to bring up the need for evidence as the issue. By the way, you sorely lack evidence for almost all of your attacks against me, for they are generally untrue.

Popper is the reason that "falsifiability" is such an issue in science today. Peirce mentioned nearly the same thing, but he used several other criteria as well.

<blockquote>Here’s another straightforward challenge for you, offered with the utmost sincerity. Kuhn claims in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” that the fit of data to a theory (“its problem-solving ability”) is often not the main reason for its acceptance or dismissal and cites several examples, including the contest between the Brahe and Copernican astronomical systems,</blockquote>

I don't know all of the particulars, of course, but I can tackle at least this one to some degree.

First off, it wasn't really until later that the Keplerian model largely won out. Brahe's model, since it did fit the data probably as well as the Copernican model did, was a contender until Kepler fit the data much better with his elliptical orbits. No doubt the Copernican model had more followers up until then, but one could not really decide between Brahe and Kepler based upon the data alone.

Secondly, there was good reason to prefer the Copernican model, because it actually explained many of the most prominent "epicyclic" phenomena (while not doing away with them), while Brahe's model was descriptive, not explanatory. Usually when we say that the data need to "fit the model", we really don't mean that merely mapping the data out is what matters, rather that it fits and explains the data. Ptolemy and Brahe fit the data, but they didn't do much in the way of making explanatory models. Science makes explanatory models, not just maps of the phenomena from our perspective, hence "fitting the data" is stated in the context of "explanation", not just "fit" as people like Kuhn and Feyerabend suggest.

<blockquote>the oxygen/phlogiston debate, the fact that Copernicus destroyed a time-honored explanation of terrestrial motion without replacing it, and the fact that Newton and Laviosier did the same for an older explanation of gravity and the common properties of metals, respectively. You claim to disagree with his argument and reject his examples. For our benefit, please show how all of Kuhn’s examples are mistaken. </blockquote>

No, I picked one, and the onus is on you to actually make your case, instead of changing the subject away from what I actually wrote (and dishonestly claiming that I didn't address your faulty claims). I know the Gish Gallop when I see it, and an unfair demand that you haven't even come close to fulfilling yourself, and no, I don't fall for anything no matter how intellectually dishonest it is.

<blockquote>As for your supposition that my delay in responding was due to unwillingness to engage you rather than inability due to time constraints,</blockquote>

As for as your penchant to make up stuff and accuse me of saying it, it is getting very old.

I didn't in the least say that you were unwilling to respond. Where do you come up with such unwarranted accusations?

What I wrote in response to "Galactic" might be what you're twisting into your little fantasy, but of course what I was saying there was that "Galactic" is you. I wouldn't be surprised it was, either, though such identifications are almost always necessarily tentative.

<blockquote> you have committed a cardinal sin of the “religious” and, in the popular language of the day, have claimed to know something you don’t know.</blockquote>

Why can't you even keep your attacks straight? I didn't write what you claimed, and it is not honest for you to say that I did, let alone to try to build conclusions on your false claim.

<blockquote>Hitchens and Harris would be very disappointed in you. </blockquote>

I have the feeling that Hitchens and Harris wouldn't come up with the sorts of untrue attacks that you have. Not that I particularly care what they think, but I'm amazed at how readily you make false charges against me.

<blockquote>Are we going to try to understand how science really works or mulishly continue to insist that it operates like it does not.</blockquote>

It looks like you're so intent on insisting that science works as it does not that you'll write any manner of untrue things regarding my own contribution.

<blockquote>Unless someone can engage me at a more sophisticated level this is my last post on this site.</blockquote>

Apparently you can't engage me at all. I went through a number of your claims, and all you did was to make untrue claims about what I had written.

Why don't you try actually including what I've written in your responses, so that you don't make as many errors and false charges as you did in your recent post? Frankly, I'm stunned at how many untrue things you could get into a relatively short post. It must be very embarrassing for you not to be able even to competently restate <b>what I actually wrote</b>, let alone have any ability to address my scientific and philosophical points.

<blockquote>Prima Facia evidence for the plot, substance, and need for this movie is amply provided by Glen Davidson’s posts.

Indeed he is the poster boy for the hubris, egomania, and sophistry common to the evo community.</blockquote>

So, the puffed-up ignorant one can't make a coherent argument, and settles for dishonest ad hominems (formal fallacies) instead. Why is this so much the usual for IDists? Don't you have anything worthwhile to say at all?

<blockquote>Oh! And if Davidson or other evos chat back please refer to me as the other wireheads in the Fortune 500 who worked for me in my executive capacity did prior to my retirement… Mr. Eaton Sir is adequate.</blockquote>

I'm sure that Eaton-the-dullard will do well enough. No doubt it's among the more charitable terms that someone so lacking in manners and intelligence has been called.

As far as the rest of Eaton's pablum, it's splattered all over the web like anything else that requires a strong cleaning solution. Now, if Eaton ever has anything intelligent to say, like actually answering the substantive posts that I made, rather than showing off his overweening ignorance, the change would do us all good. Indeed, I'd like to receive one intelligent reply from an IDist, instead of loathsome and hateful fallacies which are the best that Eaton can manage.

I make intelligent comments, the IDists never once address what I write, instead only attacking me out of their envy of anyone they can't challenge. And they pretend that it is we who are choking off debate, when we're the only ones actually engaging in debate. It's a poor showing that pompous blowhards like Eaton make.

Glen D[URL=http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Another one:

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<blockquote>I am flabbergasted by the stupidity of evolutionists.</blockquote>

I'm sort of amazed, but hardly surprised, that you don't answer a single substantive issue raised by myself or others, but write the usual unthinking diatribe that people who can't think for themselves constantly churn out.

<blockquote>They deride ID with the most closed and simple minded arguments, I feel sorry for such brainwashed people.</blockquote>

Let's see, not a single thing that you wrote in your entire post said anything that isn't seen all across the web from IDists who can't deal with the issues. You just try to shut out the issues by dull repetition of the chants you picked up from Dembski and others who avoid actual debate about the issues.

By the way, if you actually felt sorry for anybody, rather than trying to make a less-than-honest attack on them, you'd be trying to reach them instead of trying to smear them with your lack of anything substantive to say.

<blockquote>It’s sad that people who can put a cogent essay together are dumb enough to swallow the “just-so” explanations, the logical and conceptual gymnastics that pass for “proof” of evolution.</blockquote>

"It's sad" that someone can lob bombs at those he despises without in the least being able to back up his charges.

<blockquote>Then on top of that reject ID out of hand with zombie-like slogans; Here’s a hint: Saying “it’s not science” is not a trump card.</blockquote>

Then why don't you engage the actual arguments? Oh, that's right, you're IDist, and we never get anything of substance out of IDists. At least I've never seen it.

<blockquote>I doubt evolutionists all go into history class and shout down the professor all period about what they are teaching isn’t science and so it should not be taught in a science class. </blockquote>

I bet anyone with an honest interest in the issues doesn't ignore the massive number of high-level engagements of ID's "arguments" on the net, while making more empty attacks, as you happen to do.

<blockquote>In any case, ID is not a science the same way a doorstop is not a science, apples and oranges; it is an abstract idea, and whether or not it is scientific depends on how one approaches the idea.</blockquote>

Tell us how to do science with ID. That's what counts. We have a working theory, or more correctly, a working set of theories. You want us to give equal billing to something that has never been shown to work, with a theory that happens to guide and integrate biology today.

<blockquote>“I’m not a monkey’s nephew” and “duh, it’s so complicated it must have been designed” are not the pinnacles of pro-ID argument. </blockquote>

I'm afraid that we haven't seen anything higher level than that. Sure, there's higher-level obfuscations of the basic vacuity of ID, such as Dembski's and Behe's attempts to ram a false dilemma into science--the notion that if evolutionary theory fails to account for life, then ID prevails. Sorry, that's never been true. The height of ID never comes close to reaching the standards of science and forensics, which is the requirement for actual evidence of investigable causes producing investigable effects.

<blockquote>The fact of the matter is that evolution *is* just a theory (by that I mean the non-scientific def. of ‘theory’), one chock full of holes.</blockquote>

One chock full of successes, and with fewer fundamental issues in question than theories of gravity have.

<blockquote>Face it, there is no definitive evidence!</blockquote>

Is there definitive evidence for language evolution in non-literate languages? If so, there is much more evidence for biological evolution, for we have morphological evidence, DNA, fossil evidence, and recognizably different evidence of evolution between eukaryotes and prokaryotes.

<blockquote>Whenever I look at an online debate about evolution, the evolutionist side just puts a link to talkorigins about macroevolution.</blockquote>

I don't think that I ever have, mainly because most of Talkorigins isn't written very accessibly. But that's beside the point, for unless you can actually answer adequately the evidence presented at Talkorigins, your complaint fails. What is more important, none of you have begun to do the one thing needed to make ID science, which is to come up with evidence in favor of ID.

<blockquote>“Missing-link” fossils does not disprove ID!</blockquote>

The transitionals have all of the historical baggage expected in non-teleological evolution--and at the evolutionarily-predicted times for such sorts of "poor design" to be found. Archaeopteryx has teeth and a bony tail, neither of which is helpful for flight. Those have been known for quite some time, as well as the less well-developed keel than those in modern birds. What is more new is that a "critical ligamentous structure" making modern birds more efficient fliers has been found to be absent in archaeopteryx ("A critical ligamentous mechanism in the evolution of bird flight" David B. Baier, Stephen M. Gatesy & Farish A Jenkins Jr. <b>Nature</b> pp. 307-310 v.445 18 January 2007).

<blockquote>Fossils, whose significance is a matter of debate, which is not a settled matter, even if they did fit into the evolutionary timeline perfectly, STILL would not disprove ID. What if the supposed designer, just started small and then kept tweaking with its creation?</blockquote>

You mean, what if the designer made organisms with exactly the sort of fossil evidence and genetic evidence that is expected from non-teleological evolution? Well, such a being would be undetectable, for its effects would be indistinguishable from those of MET. That's why we're not really interested in how carefully you guys tweak your "designer" specifically so that it cannot be falsified by the evidence. You make "design" a meaningless concept by doing so.

<blockquote>Fossils just show that organisms changed gradually over time, they do not show that they changed only because of natural selection, etc. </blockquote>

It shows that the same "short-sighted" and inheritance-constrained changes that have occurred in the crown groups also exist in the earlier organisms. Also, nearly all species that have ever lived have gone extinct, as you would expect from unguided evolution. Exactly why a "designer" would make australopithecines, H. habilis, H. erectus, H. neanderthalis, and H. floresiensis only for them to go extinct in roughly the same pattern as you'd get from non-teleological evolution remains just one of those many unfathomable ideas of ID. In fact, because you guys are so intent on denying any sort of criteria that could actually point toward "design", everything in ID remains obscure and unreachable by science.

What I'd like to ask is, why do IDists think that design and non-teleological evolution produce indistinguishable results? Do they really think that genetic algorithms are used simply to mimic rational design processes? Do they not understand that the substantially different results found in evolution vs. those found in known design processes are being exploited via genetic algorithms?

It was life that showed us another route than "intelligent design" to discover successful strategies, evolutionary processes utilizing a sort of "natural selection." Now we have that capability within our repertoire of instrumentalities, and it is utilized precisely where the complexities are too great for our rational abilities. Which is interesting, because, of course, life also is beyond our rational abilities thus far (I don't think that if Venter is successful that I'll have to say anything different). Indeed, it is evolution that can deal with complexities beyond those understood by the fairly simple rationalities of the human mind (not true of all aspects of complexity, but important in many thus far, despite our computational enhancement of our rational capabilities).

The huge difference between design and biological evolution is that the former readily yields evidence for rational thinking in its processes in by far the most cases, while biological evolution lacks any evidence for rational planning (that is, while sometimes evolution and intelligence can come to similar "ends", any observaable differentiation leaves life (life that hasn't been manipulated by us, that is) on the non-rational side of the "production process")

<blockquote>It seems like only way to really show evolution is to show with a mathematical model that statistically it is possible for natural selection, etc., to cause an organism to become increasingly complex in the alloted time.</blockquote>

Real science pays attention to the predictions made by a theory, and accepts the theory that agrees best with those explanatory predictions until something better comes along. One of the problems of ID is that it wishes to change the rules of science (more coherently than traditional creationism does, for the latter's attacks on science are generally piecemeal), which is the truly grave threat to science and society hypothetically posed by ID.

<blockquote>This has NEVER been shown, Mathematical models show quite the opposite, that even if creatures could evolve “naturally” the way they have, it would take orders of magnitude longer for that to happen.</blockquote>

Has language evolution been shown to be possible by computer simulations? Of course not, it is too complex to be properly modeled at this time, as is biological evolution. ID models don't count, by the way, since they assume very narrow target areas, much narrower than can be shown from the evidence (the evidence at least hints that they're quite wrong in their assumptions).

<blockquote>Now given that there is no evidence of evolution,</blockquote>

It is not given that there is no evidence of evolution. You haven't begun to answer the three major predictions I listed for evolution in post #99, by which I definitely meant (and noted) non-teleological evolution.

<blockquote>that does not prove ID, but assuming that physics and the laws of the physical universe, statistics, logic, etc., have not dramatically changed during the “life” of the known universe, this intuitively suggests that a designer is behind the variety and complexity of organisms on earth.</blockquote>

Since you have absolutely no evidence in favor of "design" of organisms, whatever "intuition" you might have about it is insufficient to make ID worthy of consideration.

<blockquote>That is what makes ID worthwhile.</blockquote>

An intuition sans evidence makes ID worthwhile? That is what is scary about IDists, no evidence and an "intuition" is supposed to be the equal of an abundantly evidenced and useful theory.

<blockquote>For all the picking-on ID strawmen, some of you guys need to pick on evolution a bit.</blockquote>

For all of the claims that you make, it would be nice if you could back up just one of them. You know, with evidence.

<blockquote>There is a universe of ideas out there between evolution-explains-everything and bible-thumping.</blockquote>

Evolution hardly explains everything (a strawman fallacy on your part). However, it is the only scientific theory explaining the inherently genealogical-like taxonomies found even prior to acceptance of evolutionary theory, the different modes of evolution between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, and why pterosaur, bat, and bird wings are all adaptations of legs, and not design either from first principles or from previously existing wings.

<blockquote>The way things are run, evolution is not a science, where is the falsifiability?</blockquote>

In the taxonomical structures, first of all. And I've mentioned plenty more, though you ignore whatever doesn't comply with your a priori assumptions.

<blockquote>Any evidence that does not fit into evolutionary theory is ignored.</blockquote>

I'd like to see a single statement of yours that can be substantiated, including that one.

<blockquote>Where are the repeatable experiments?</blockquote>

In the journals. Like most of science, experiments have to extrapolated to areas which are practically or theoretically beyond experimentation, but of course the experiments have been done.

<blockquote>No, showing bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics or that they will evolve into a slightly different species does not prove that evolution is responsible for all of the variety and complexity of life.</blockquote>

I actually made that point at Pharyngula recently. However, few of us suppose that antibiotic resistance is the whole of the evidence (rather, evolutionary theory ties humans and bacteria together ecologically, where ID would require malaria (<i>Plasmodium falciparum</i>) to have been designed, apparently with the purpose of infecting humans), rather we point to the predictions of evolution which have been tested but not falsified in the testing. Indeed, I wrote a good deal on this very forum about a number of these issues, but have received nothing other than dull repetitions of ID talking points in reply, along with rather pointed hatred from several of these supposed "Christians". Well, what's new?

If you had science, you'd be telling us how ID provides cause and effect explanations of what we see, and how to do science with these required explanations. Lacking any science, you have a lot of untrue statements about evolution and those of us who care about science. You completely ignore the arguments and evidence brought forward in order to falsely claim that we have not done so. And so ID goes, never providing the requisite evidence, always putting out vast array of unsubstantiated tripe.

Ben is not a dumb guy, I wonder if this is a pure play for cash. You guys don't think he's actually going to read any of the comments on his "blog" do you? This is pure street theatre to generate buzz.

His link for volunteers is pretty funny, funnier is that he's probably getting tons of creotards signing up for active duty.

Onward Christian soldiers, and don't forget to leave your tithe in the War Chest on your way to the battlefield!

This sucks. Now I can't stand Ben Stein and I'll never watch him again.

MOVIE CONTESTEver sat in class and had your professor straight up challenge your intelligence for suggesting even the possibility of an intelligent design in the universe?Tired of being labeled merely for questioning aspects of the Darwinian theory of evolution?? Ever been scoffed at or ridiculed in front of your peers?Well, here’s your opportunity to tell your story on our Website AND possibly be in the movie, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”! Tell the world some of the outrageous things your professors say about your questions.You and your story just might be chosen by our producers to be in the film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”! Let your voice be heard!

Sounds that they're a little desperate for content - four months away from the scheduled release date.

It sounds like "Penthouse Letters" for the fundamentalist set, an opportunity to write a bunch of paranoia porn.

Since the whole thing is a work of fiction, I think that they have opened the doors for contributions. I'm sure some of you can come up with better complex persecution tales for those with a well-developed persecution complex.

Of course, you probably can't post the actual submissions here, but you might drop a note here to say if you have an offering in submission.

It sounds like "Penthouse Letters" for the fundamentalist set, an opportunity to write a bunch of paranoia porn.

Since the whole thing is a work of fiction, I think that they have opened the doors for contributions. I'm sure some of you can come up with better complex persecution tales for those with a well-developed persecution complex.

Of course, you probably can't post the actual submissions here, but you might drop a note here to say if you have an offering in submission.

I think I recall that there was a professor that actually has two doctorates, that was horribly abused by a graduate student recently for daring to speak about Intelligent Design. And to make it worse, the abuser was a girl, even though the bible says women should stay at home and make babies.

Is this the kind of story that they want might want maybe?

--------------Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

It sounds like "Penthouse Letters" for the fundamentalist set, an opportunity to write a bunch of paranoia porn.

Since the whole thing is a work of fiction, I think that they have opened the doors for contributions. I'm sure some of you can come up with better complex persecution tales for those with a well-developed persecution complex.

Of course, you probably can't post the actual submissions here, but you might drop a note here to say if you have an offering in submission.

I think I recall that there was a professor that actually has two doctorates, that was horribly abused by a graduate student recently for daring to speak about Intelligent Design. And to make it worse, the abuser was a girl, even though the bible says women should stay at home and make babies.

In his latest article "Darwinism: The Imperialism of Biology?" Ben Stein is criticised by Glen Davidson who wrote there seven successive long posts! I've put there my answer listing antidarwian scientists.

I am not sure there is so strong relation between darwinism and capitalism as Ben Stein claim, but the idea of "natural selection" is something really extraordinary and new. Ancient people living in connection with nature never observed it. But it is strongly supported from armchair intellectulas sitting at Universities in industrialised countries, scientists who wouldn't survive a day in countryard.

In his latest article "Darwinism: The Imperialism of Biology?" Ben Stein is criticised by Glen Davidson who wrote there seven successive long posts! I've put there my answer listing antidarwian scientists.

I am not sure there is so strong relation between darwinism and capitalism as Ben Stein claim, but the idea of "natural selection" is something really extraordinary and new. Ancient people living in connection with nature never observed it. But it is strongly supported from armchair intellectulas sitting at Universities in industrialised countries, scientists who wouldn't survive a day in countryard.

I have been a creationist for many years after realizing that the bible was true and that man-made science could not explain the bigger questions, like Why are We Here? and What are We? And I realized that the bible gave the best explanations for these questions. That is all fine and good...

Until I entered a university and enrolled in a biology department. I was told by professor and TA after professor and TA that my views were stupid and were not accepted by the scientific community. Although I expect to be rejected by men and be unpopular for carrying the cause of Christ it still stung.

When I offered to defend my views using the bible, I was told that it does not apply. These darwinists want to stamp out all dissent and try to discredit the Word of God because they hate the idea that God created them. The bible tells all about this. When I told them that their 'evidence' was just rocks and ideas based on things that they could measure then they laughed at me and I lost my composure.

Now I am an engineer and doing very well for myself. I try to stay out of the debate but in my Sunday School class I have free reign to teach children in the way that they should be brought up, so when they have to face the forces of the world they will be prepared to be ridiculed and hated for standing up for Jesus.

--------------You're obviously illiterate as hell. Peach, bro.-FtK

Finding something hard to believe based on the evidence, is science.-JoeG

I have been a creationist for many years after realizing that the bible was true and that man-made science could not explain the bigger questions, like Why are We Here? and What are We? And I realized that the bible gave the best explanations for these questions. That is all fine and good...

Until I entered a university and enrolled in a biology department. I was told by professor and TA after professor and TA that my views were stupid and were not accepted by the scientific community. Although I expect to be rejected by men and be unpopular for carrying the cause of Christ it still stung.

When I offered to defend my views using the bible, I was told that it does not apply. These darwinists want to stamp out all dissent and try to discredit the Word of God because they hate the idea that God created them. The bible tells all about this. When I told them that their 'evidence' was just rocks and ideas based on things that they could measure then they laughed at me and I lost my composure.

Now I am an engineer and doing very well for myself. I try to stay out of the debate but in my Sunday School class I have free reign to teach children in the way that they should be brought up, so when they have to face the forces of the world they will be prepared to be ridiculed and hated for standing up for Jesus.

This is quality tard, nice work. One suggestion - throw in the term "intelligent design" at least once so the reader sees ID and creationism/bible/god/jeebus/etc are all from the same play book.

My entries are heavy on the bible, creationism and creation science with at least one mention of ID.

I wonder if the post that I have attempted to re-post below is being either blocked or smothered (posting it late, when few would read it) by the people at Expelled because javascript is Ruloff, Miller, or Stein. There's no saying for sure, of course, but javascript obviously hates me for getting in there quickly to fisk Stein's obnoxious nonsense, and since Kevin Miller did respond (rather disastrously, since I picked him apart) to me once, I wonder if they're protecting one of their stupid writers or characters from criticism. Just saying.

Here's the re-post, since I fear that I might have to be archiving what I write there again:

Quote

Glen Davidson Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

November 2nd, 2007 at 4:25 pm Not a new one, but I don’t know why the following comment hasn’t been posted. I don’t mean to continue to treat with people whose only motivation is to attack those they hate with religious bigotry, however I should be allowed to respond to the dishonest quotemines and vapid unsupported accusations of those without any conscience or competence to discuss science. So here’s the re-post:

Glen Davidson Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

November 2nd, 2007 at 10:27 amJavascript quotemines, in the way that only pseudoscientists and rabid fools do:

Garrison Seeber Says:November 1st, 2007 at 3:26 pm“only further emphasizes the Neanderthal mentality of your suppressive beliefs”Validate that claim…………………Well, let’s see… this might be difficult but I’ll give it a shot.

Unfortunately, you’re too dumb to know what validation means. It does not mean quotemining. I use harsh words, but I also back them up, while you only tell lies and attack.

Below are validating quotes from our buddy Glen, the self proclaiming intellectual, that clearly exhibit his use of Neanderthal tactics in his attempts to bully others on the blog seeking only to exercise their constitutional rights to freedom of speech.

Sorry, unintelligent one, I was not the one who came in here with nothing but hatred and lies. I made arguments, I backed up, or “validated” (too bad you don’t know what words mean, buffoon), what I wrote. Not so much to those who had nothing related to substance, liek the dishonest Javascript, but that’s because yours were free-form lies.

Follow with me if you will:……………GLEN QUOTES:- As pathetic as your knowledge of science is…

As we’ve shown previously, and as I demonstrated there as well. Try to learn to read above third-grade level.

- you lack intellectual integrity…

Another quotemine. I’d shown where he had not dealt with matters in an intellectually honest fashion. Rather than arguing pointedly with what I’ve written, you just whine and lie, again.

- your knowledge of science is abysmal

As is obvious to anyone who knows science, and has been amply demonstrated in these comments. Just because you ignore every bit of substance that I’ve written to back up my claims does not alleviate you of your responsibility to deal with them with intellectual honesty. Neither does your lack of intellectual honesty alleviate your responsibilities.

- you simply act as if science is as mindless as your sponsors are

And I’m sure that if you had anything intelligent to say, you’d be arguing against what I wrote, instead of quote-mining my supporting evidence out of it, with your typical dishonest tactics.

- this is part of your sleazy tactics.

Another sleazy quotemine from one who doesn’t even know what intellectual integrity means. Indeed, it was a part of his sleazy tactics, as I demonstrated, and which argumentation you ignore as you have from the beginning.

- A rather simplistic analysis…

OK, it was an extremely simplistic analysis. Sorry that I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

- Ben’s pathetic fallacy of argumentum ad hominem.

Which fallacy you compound, as you quotemine and attack without paying any attention to the facts and arguments.

- That’s the best you can do, Ben?

Still better than the dishonesty of your attacks, javascript.

- you’re digging your own grave there, Ben.

I know that it’s nothing new, but yes, another dishonest quotemine, as javascript pointedly ignores what I actually wrote, how this fit into my arguments and conclusions.

- So what’s your point?

Here’s how an honest person would have quoted:

So what’s your point? Are we supposed to throw out English science, since it was based in a non-politically correct economic system? Here’s Ben saying that Western culture must (selectively) go, due to its many sins. Ben the PC man. Very good, Ben, you’re now part of the ranks of the nihilists and bigots who fault civilization’s advances just because much of the past evil was retained for so long (and into the present, one might (or might not) argue).

Since my response was to his faulting of “Darwinism” based on the inadequate grounds that it comes from a time of imperialism, I dare say that the honest quote demonstrate my point. Which is why you dishonestly left that out.

- Ben, you’re now part of the ranks of the nihilists and bigots

See the foregoing quote for the context that javascript is not honest enough to include.

- Your understanding of evolution is as deficient as your understanding of history, Stein.

And apparently so is yours, javascript, or you’d deal with the facts and arguments I brought up instead of quote-mining.

- One does not write of “Darwinist means,” unless one is a science illiterate, as Ben is.

That’s right. He’s shown himself to be illiterate in science right there, and by continuing to write of “Darwinism” as if it depended upon the writings of one man.

- It isn’t a lacuna, ignorant one…

Were he not ignorant, the issue of abiogenesis would not have come up. And if you weren’t ignorant, you’d recognize that I made an important point. I am not as nice as I was previously, by the way, mostly because Ben has ignored where he has been corrected in the past.

- someone so bereft of intellectual honesty as Ben is would even attempt to supply evidence for his scurrilous charges.

Yes, they attack it at its very foundation, at its requirement for demonstrable evidence. Another issue you can’t deal with, though apparently there are none you can address, java.

- bigoted theists…

A particularly disgusting quotemine from java. I very carefully pointed out that many theists are nothing like the bigoted and dishonest IDists, but he quotemines it as he wishes to misrepresent it.

- More tendentious nonsense.

And of course I justified that remark. You’ve justified none of your attacks.

- Ben has no truthful criticisms to make…

Here’s the context that this extremely dishonest person wishes to be ignored:

More tendentious nonsense. Darwinism and its successors have never ever sought to explain everything. Darwin sought to integrate biology with Newtonian-type science, and largely succeeded. But I guess Ben has no truthful criticisms to make of MET, so he resorts to what IDists always end up using, untrue assertions.

Since I was addressing the fact that “Darwinism” has never once claimed to explain everything, yes, it was tendentious, and I have yet to see Ben provide a truthful criticism of MET. Note how dishonestly javascript edited out the qualifiers I included.

I have to wonder if you’re one of the writers of Expelled, javascript. You’re really so dishonest and bigoted that it’s hard not to believe you could be.

- I’d like to know where you got such a disingenuous idea as that

This is where that came from:

But it’s difficult to believe it will. Theories that presume to explain everything without much evidence rarely do.

I’d like to know where you got such a disingenuous idea as that “Darwinism” presumes to explain everything.

I’d still like to know where such a disingenuous idea came from. From you, javascript?

More quote-mining, of course, and yes, I demonstrate that you who lie constantly are of that kind.

- Not all of us are as pitiful as you anti-science ranters.

Ben was claiming that we’re “pitiful” and (in essence) that therefore we need to be open to unproven nonsense like ID. But indeed, we who know science know a good deal more about the issues than people like Stein and javascript.

- the usual arrogance of the ignorant

Indeed, it was the usual arrogance of the ignorant, which you continue.

- if you weren’t a slimy little worm, and actually knew something, I’m sure you could have written something intelligent.

And instead of making up for your dishonest attack, you pile on more quoteming dishonesty.

- your anti-intellectual rant ad nauseam

Since you have done nothing but stupidly rant, I rather suspect that this has been well-validated.

……………..

Now maybe it’s just me but that sounds more like a Neanderthal then it does a civilized Intellectual that I think Glen would have us believe that he is.

Why yes it does, and since it is your dishonest quotemining and vicious unsupported attack that compiled it in such a tendentious fashion, it looks like you have shown that you were just projecting.

There is no reason to either block or smother the above post. Just because it may very well be one of the writers, producers, or main characters whose dishonest claims have been refuted is no excuse to either smother or expel this post.

Am I supposed to stand by while Ruloff, Miller, or Stein (I increasingly suspect one of them or others associated with the movie, since what seems to really bring out the hatred is that I refuted the blog at the top of the comment list) dishonestly quotemines and accuses without evidence or justification? Sure, I’m well past the point where I’m going to be nice when lies are constantly being told about us in a bid to enforce religion on our society, but unlike javascript, I actually make arguments, do not dishonestly quotemine, and I stay away from fallacious attacks on the person.

It will certainly be a sorry day if you protect “one of your own” from a response to his unwarranted and unsupported attack on the person, without the slightest hint of being capable of answering what I actually wrote (hence the quotemining).

It appears that the fascists running the Expelled blog did expel the comments I wrote above. What a shock, considering how tendentious and dishonest everything they've written has been.

I'm going to assume that javascript is one of the bully boys associated with that movie. Nothing I wrote there hasn't been written about others at that blog, but apparently when I demonstrate the dishonesty of javascript, it's no longer permitted.

I'm starting to seriously doubt the Expelled bunch's commitment to allowing comments to run without censorship, though they did fairly well in the past. Btw, as others have apparently found, Dawkins' forum sucks too. Regardless, I'm now archiving the fisking I did of Ben's latest blog (there are a couple of repeats of posts):

(OK, I'll actually put the posts here when I can get through)

I'm finally getting around to putting in what I wanted to archive, though it looks like what they posted is going to stay there for some time. As for the bit above about Dawkins' forum, I'm not sure that it doesn't suck, but at least they didn't totally wipe out the post that made me say they suck. They moved it and took their time in telling me about it.

Anyway, to save these from possible future censoring:

Quote

Glen Davidson Says:

October 31st, 2007 at 6:40 pm Let’s make this short and sweet. It would be taken for granted by any serious historian that any ideology or worldview would partake of the culture in which it grew up and would also be largely influenced by the personality of the writer of the theory.

Actually, you could make it shorter and sweeter by actually, you know, bringing in evidence. As pathetic as your knowledge of science is, Ben, even you must have some notion that it isn’t “Darwinism” that is being taught today, it is a combination of ideas that have been, and continue to be, tested against the evidence.

I suppose that as long as you lack intellectual integrity, however, you will equate modern evolutionary theory with “Darwinism,” not despite the dishonesty of it, but because of the dishonesty of it. Again, I know that your knowledge of science is abysmal, but you could try to tell the truth, and you could try to deal with a theory that has had many contributions made to it through time and across cultures. However, you don’t, you simply act as if science is as mindless as your sponsors are, beholden to authority rather than to the evidence. It’s much easier, of course, for you to attack strawmen dishonestly set up, than it is to actually deal with biological science, so this is part of your sleazy tactics.

No less a genius than the evil Karl Marx noted that even after capitalism succumbed to Communism, society would still be imbued with the class artifacts and cultural values of the system that preceded it.

Oooh, great authority there. Likely it’s true, but then Marx predicted that religion would fade away as well. Has it?

Much smarter analysts than I have noted that the whole system of Marxism, especially its sharp attacks on capitalists as a class, was motivated by Karl Marx’s envy of the much wealthier industrialist/capitalist members of the Marx family.

A rather simplistic analysis, but it probably played a role in it. So what? Adam Smith wrote in support of his class, and Machiavelli was an apologist for rulers to whom he hoped to suck up. One judges ideas on their merits, not on personalities. Which makes this whole attack on “Darwinism” Ben’s pathetic fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. That’s the best you can do, Ben?

In other words, major theories do not arise out of thin air. They come from the era in which they arose and are influenced greatly by the personality and background of the writer.

Already you’re digging your own grave there, Ben. Evolutionary thought comes from across time and culture, and its origin (if we understand Darwin as the origin–there were others) happens to also be the country of Newton and the Enlightenment. Yes, it is understandable that Darwin would integrate biology into causal science in the country that largely gave rise to causal science. That’s highly preferable to the acausal non-science that you’re supporting now, Ben.

(In law, this theory is known as “legal realism”. Judges make up their minds on the basis of their prejudices and then rationalize their decisions by pretending to be bound by prior case law. One might call what happens with ideologies “political realism.” Persons make up their ideologies based on their times and their life situations.)

Yes, funny that, judges care about causation, and you do too in the area of history, Ben. Yet you’re pushing magic as an appropriate alternative to your causal methods in the biological realm, and you have absolutely no basis from which to do this.

Darwinism, the notion that the history of organisms was the story of the survival of the fittest and most hardy, and that organisms evolve because they are stronger and more dominant than others, is a perfect example of the age from which it came: the age of Imperialism.

Very selective there, Stein. You know very well that Newton’s was an age of slavery, plunder, colonialism, and religious bigotry. Yet you praise Newton and his science, while you rubbish Darwin’s science by association. That’s not intellectually honest in the least.

What is more, Darwinism as such fits your own political posture rather well, Ben, as you favor the haves over the have-nots.

When Darwin wrote, it was received wisdom that the white, northern European man was destined to rule the world. This could have been rationalized as greed–i.e., Europeans simply taking the resources of nations and tribes less well organized than they were.

Sure, and this differs from Newton’s time, how? IOW, do you have a point that doesn’t undercut what you’ve written heretofore?

Anyway, as it happens, the capitalism of Victorian Britain is somewhat analogous to Darwinism (and is not actually very akin to traditional society, as we evolved to be more cooperative than Ben’s politics prescribes), and it may indeed have helped to give the right idea to Darwin. What of that? One has to get ideas from somewhere, the only real issue being the one that Ben avoids, the issue of evidence that so strongly supports evolutionary theory, and does not support the creationistic views that Ben and Ruloff wish to impose on science.

It could have been worked out as a form of amusement of the upper classes and a place for them to realize their martial fantasies. (Was it Shaw who called Imperialism “…outdoor relief for the upper classes?”)

So what’s your point? Are we supposed to throw out English science, since it was based in a non-politically correct economic system? Here’s Ben saying that Western culture must (selectively) go, due to its many sins. Ben the PC man. Very good, Ben, you’re now part of the ranks of the nihilists and bigots who fault civilization’s advances just because much of the past evil was retained for so long (and into the present, one might (or might not) argue).

But it fell to a true Imperialist,

Arguably, Stein is rather more an imperialist than upper-class Darwin was. Darwin didn’t much trouble with politics, he was one of the privileged Brits who dabbled in the sciences because it was very interesting and socially rewarded, not because it yielded any great imperial or capitalist prizes. Indeed, a good deal of science was done that way, while Ben selectively condemns evolutionary science simply because he’s bigoted against it.

[Darwin was] from a wealthy British family on both sides, married to a wealthy British woman, writing at the height of Imperialism in the UK, when a huge hunk of Africa and Asia was “owned” (literally, owned, by Great Britain) to create a scientific theory that rationalized Imperialism.

Colonialism was pursued in part (or at least excused by this concept) to stop the slave trade in Africa. You know, the slave trade, which America persisted in even as America came up with better ideas about government, and which Britain engaged in both at that time and during Newton’s time. Once again I note how tendentious Ben’s rendering of history is, and how really lacking in honesty it is.

More to the point, however, is that “Darwinism” didn’t cause Imperialism (which Ben tacitly allows), nor was most of the propaganda in favor of it after Darwin actually based on evolutionary ideas. God and country were the main pillars upon which imperialism was based, with God supposedly ordaining the white races to impose their rule and (again supposedly) better the world. Learn some history, Ben.

By explaining that Imperialism worked from the level of the most modest organic life up to man, and that in every organic situation, the strong dominated the weak and eventually wiped them out,

Your understanding of evolution is as deficient as your understanding of history, Stein. Modern evolutionary theory is definitely not about that, and even Darwin understood the intra-species and inter-species cooperation in an imperfect sense. After all, he had to deal with the objections involving altruism and mutualism, meaning that while his theory may have been analogous with British imperialism, it also took many exceptions to it. Try to explain that, Ben.

Darwin offered the most compelling argument yet for Imperialism. It was neither good nor bad, neither Liberal nor Conservative, but simply a fact of nature.

It’s rather funny how Ben the Social Darwinist keeps railing against Imperialism, when of course “Darwinism” tended to be used more as a prop for capitalism than for imperialism (mostly people in the UK weren’t focused on the latter, but were on the former). But in his tendentious rendering of history, the attack must be on imperialism, and not on his precious capitalism, though neither one came from “Darwinism” at all (it was used to justify both, but it’s far from what actually produced both of them).

In dominating Africa and Asia, Britain was simply acting in accordance with the dictates of life itself. He was the ultimate pitchman for Imperialism.

Really? You mean that Darwin was the main propagandist for the imperialism of religious Britain? Then why is your despicable film portraying evolutionists as being opposed to religion, when by your claims the religionists of Britain were happily using “Darwinism” to support imperialism? Of course they weren’t really, they were operating on religious fictions of the ordination of their Empire, and of the “white man’s burden.” If Darwinism was used as well it hardly matters, because few were really motivated by such an abstract biological concept, while many were motivated by racialism and nationalism.

Now, we know that Imperialism had a short life span. Imperialism was a system that took no account of the realities of the human condition.

Much like Stein’s politics do not.

Human beings do not like to have their countries owned by people far away in ermine robes. They like to be in charge of themselves.

Do they now? Then why did intellectuals of the UK’s former colony, the US, take up Darwinism without much fuss? Didn’t they understand it as propaganda in favor of imperialism?

Of course they didn’t, and neither does God-soaked Mexico, which happens to maintain a historical animus against imperialism and colonialism. Why would that be, Ben? Do you think that it might just be that Newtonian physics and “Darwinian” biology just happen not to be imperialistic in and of themselves, nor atheistic in and of themselves?

Imperialism had a short but hideous history–of repression and murder.

And also of ridiculous people who equate science with imperialism, without any true justification for it. I think that we have little reason to expect anything honest in this film, given the appalling dishonesty of its main characters on this blog.

But its day is done.

Well, not according to those who try to impose their views onto science. You know, Islamic fundamentalists, and IDists, the sorts of people who won’t allow science to progress according to its own standards and mutual agreements.

Darwinism is still very much alive, utterly dominating biology.

Wow, I guess that’s true–if you totally ignore the substantial developments since then, as, of course, Ben does. So is much of Newtonian physics alive (like evolution, significantly added to and superseded in some areas), from an even darker and more brutal time.

And geology from that time and place also serves as the basis for geology today in many aspects.

Despite the fact that no one has ever been able to prove the creation of a single distinct species by Darwinist means, Darwinism dominates the academy and the media.

Species aren’t created, they evolve. And yes, we have huge amounts of evidence that species have evolved through Darwinian (and the other processes of evolution) means. One does not write of “Darwinist means,” unless one is a science illiterate, as Ben is.

Behe, btw, accepts evolution by natural selection, with an unevidenced role for the “designer” as one who supplies the right mutations. So Ben is using his ad hominem fallacy against “Darwinism”, while one of his precious IDists largely accepts Darwin’s contribution to evolution, disagreeing sans merit with MET vis-a-vis the source of variation and of new information.

And yes, Ben has failed to answer the three questions I have posed, which is how to explain the Linnaean taxonomic system with its apparent genealogical structure, why the mostly sexual eukaryotes evolve quite differently from asexual prokaryotes (and in the manner predicted by MET), and why it is that vertebrate wings are derived from legs, when no known designer would make wings out of legs. I think it’s safe to conclude that he has no answer, while all of these provide evidence for MET, or what Ben tendentiously labels “Darwinism”.

Darwinism also has not one meaningful word to say on the origins of organic life, a striking lacuna in a theory supposedly explaining life.

It isn’t a lacuna, ignorant one, because other processes than evolutionary mechanisms come into play during the origins of life. Darwin even allowed at one time that the Creator may have made life, while Darwin himself was simply explaining the patterns that we see in life, including the speciation of finches on the Galapagos Islands.

Alas, Darwinism has had a far bloodier life span than Imperialism. Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism,

No, those were your buddies, who distorted a scientific concept into excuses for ravaging and despoiling peoples, including their own countrymen.

a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolutionary process.

I wouldn’t suppose that someone so bereft of intellectual honesty as Ben is would even attempt to supply evidence for his scurrilous charges. He blames the science of evolution for the decidedly unscientific and unsupportable beliefs of Hitler. Well, why not violate Godwin’s law, when you yourself can’t support a single one of your statements, Ben?

The true fact of history is that the Enlightenment spawned Darwin’s thought in the birthplace of the Enlightenment, England (Newton, above all exemplifies such Enlightenment). The Enlightenment was anathema in much of Germany, and especially to the faction which took over Germany in the 1930s (the Nazis were also not in favor of Darwin, for the most part). The Enlightenment countries, which unquestionably had many faults, were the ones who had both the science and the decency to defeat the fascists. Ben disparages the Enlightenment types who promote science and decency, and who defeated the rank evil of Hitler.

Now, a few scientists are questioning Darwinism on many fronts.

Yes, and they always have. The IDists, of course, are not “questioning Darwinism”, they’re using labels, like Ben does, to suggest that evolutionary theory depends on a man and moment in history, when in fact MET is a cross-cultural, cross-religion phenomenon, accepted by religionists and atheists, and by East and West. IDists simply hate the Enlightenment, tell lies about science being “materialistic”, and try to impose their anti-Enlightenment beliefs upon free societies.

I wonder how long Darwinism’s life span will be.

Until bigoted theists (and, fortunately, many theists are totally unlike Ben and his cohorts) destroy it along with the rest of science. And it’s not “Darwinism” (not in the US–in the UK that term is conflated with MET much more than here), that’s just dishonest propaganda.

More tendentious nonsense. Darwinism and its successors have never ever sought to explain everything. Darwin sought to integrate biology with Newtonian-type science, and largely succeeded. But I guess Ben has no truthful criticisms to make of MET, so he resorts to what IDists always end up using, untrue assertions.

[Marxism] is dead everywhere but on university campuses and in the minds of psychotic dictators.

Yes, see, if you really understood history, you’d know why non-Enlightenment, non-scientific Marxism had to perish of its own contradictions, while evolutionary theory remains indispensible for doing biology.

October 31st, 2007 at 7:05 pm I’m trying to post this section of my reply again, since it doesn’t show up in the preview.

Continuing from my post above:

Darwinism also has not one meaningful word to say on the origins of organic life, a striking lacuna in a theory supposedly explaining life.

It isn’t a lacuna, ignorant one, because other processes than evolutionary mechanisms come into play during the origins of life. Darwin even allowed at one time that the Creator may have made life, while Darwin was simply explaining the patterns that we see in life, including the speciation of finches on the Galapagos Islands.

Alas, Darwinism has had a far bloodier life span than Imperialism. Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism,

No, those were your buddies, who distorted a scientific concept into excuses for ravaging and despoiling peoples, including their own countrymen.

a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolutionary process.

I wouldn’t suppose that someone so bereft of intellectual honesty as Ben is would even attempt to supply evidence for his scurrilous charges. He blames the science of evolution for the decidedly unscientific and unsupportable beliefs of Hitler. Why not violateGodwin’s law, when you yourself can’t support a single one of your statements, Ben?

The true fact of history is that the Enlightenment spawned Darwin’s thought in the birthplace of the Enlightenment, England (Newton, above all exemplifies this). The Enlightenment was anathema to much of Germany, and especially to the faction which took over Germany in the 1930s (the Nazis were also not in favor of Darwin, for the most part). The Enlightenment countries, which had many faults indeed, were the ones who had both the science and the decency to defeat the fascists, and Ben despises the Enlightenment types whopromote science and decency.

Now, a few scientists are questioning Darwinism on many fronts.

Yes, and they always have. The IDists, of course, are not “questioning Darwinism” (though they’re attacking it), they’re using labels like Ben does to suggest that evolutionary theory depends on a man and moment in history, when in fact MET is a cross-cultural, cross-religion phenomenon, accepted by religionists and atheists, and by East and West. IDists simply hate the Enlightenment, tell lies about science being “materialistic”, and try to impose their anti-Enlightenment beliefs upon free societies.

I wonder how long Darwinism’s life span will be.

Until bigoted theists (and many theists are totally unlike Ben and his cohorts) destroy it along with the rest of science. And it’s not “Darwinism” (not in the US–in the UK that term is conflated with MET much more than here). That’s just dishonest propaganda.

More tendentious nonsense. Darwinism and its successors have never ever sought to explain everything (not even Marxism did, in fact, though it went well beyond reasonable grounds). Darwin sought to integrate biology with Newtonian-type science, and largely succeeded. But I guess Ben has no truthful criticisms to make of MET, so he resorts to what IDists always end up using, untrue assertions.

[Marxism] is dead everywhere but on university campuses and in the minds of psychotic dictators.

Yes, see, if you really understood history, you’d know why non-Enlightenment, non-scientific Marxism had to perish of its own contradictions, while evolutionary theory remains indispensible for doing biology.

It survived the efforts of Marxists to stamp it out in the Soviet Union. You know why? Because it’s science. If you had the slightest notion of what science is, Stein, you’d cease trying to impose your version of Social Darwinism upon science.

But it’s difficult to believe it will. Theories that presume to explain everything without much evidence rarely do.

I’d like to know where you got such a disingenuous idea as that “Darwinism” presumes to explain everything. Or where you got the notion that MET is without much evidence. I’d guess from evil liars, most likely the sorts of anti-science anti-intellectual persons that you claim were “persecuted,” when in fact they’ve merely been held to account for their own tendentious nonsense.

Theories that outlive their era of conception and cannot be verified rarely last unless they are faith based.

That’s why Lysenkoism and ID have never been able to last in science, and why both have attempted (Lysenkoism succeeded) to use government to impose themselves into a science whose rules and methods end up excluding them based on their lack of evidence. Indeed, evolutionary thought has lasted where other ideas have fallen by the wayside, although many specific ideas about evolution have been brought up only to be ultimately rejected by the science (like Haeckel’s ideas were).

And Darwinism has been such a painful, bloody chapter in the history of ideologies, maybe we would be better off without it as a dominant force.

It isn’t a “dominant force”, it is just the primary theory in biology. What is more, it isn’t “Darwinism”, for Darwin’s writings did contain a fair amount of Victorian baggage which needed to be discarded (expelled, something science does to bad ideas), and did not know about many of the details of evolution (like neutral evolutionary concepts), and has been substantially modified in light of the evidence.

Maybe we would have a new theory:

Maybe you need to learn what the present theory is, and even to know what must be in scientific theories, like actual explanations of phenomena–which ID lacks.

We are just pitiful humans. Life is unimaginably complex.

Not all of us are as pitiful as you anti-science ranters.

And life is more like “imaginably complex,” for we use evolutionary algorithms precisely where our human design processes fail due to complexity, yet where evolutionary processes succeed. Evolution is something like a computational program, one that is massively parallel.

We are still trying to figure it out.

Yes, we are still trying to figure it out, which is why we’re unwilling to give up the only theory that reduces conceptual complexity, evolutionary theory. ID only wants us to abandon the predictive theory, in preference of dealing with everything as if it were only contingency (or where it understands data according to MET, yet denies MET’s causal mechanisms which predict those data).

We need every bit of input we can get.

Actually, we do not. We do not need the input of Ptolemy to understand the complexity of the heavens, we need people who understand science developments to input their knowledge and creativity. That’s why we have standards in science, among other reasons.

Let’s be humble about what we know and what we don’t know, and maybe in time, some answers will come.

I saw absolutely no humility in Stein’s propaganda against “Darwinism”. Only the usual arrogance of the ignorant, as they insist that bad ideas are as deserving of consideration as the ideas which have guided biological research for at least a hundred years.

October 31st, 2007 at 7:18 pm This blog is good at allowing comments, but bad in making us wait to see if we got through. I’m going to try again to post one section (it should come after my first post), again because I don’t see it on the preview. If it is a repeat, it should be easy to ignore.

Continuing from my first post on this blog thread:

(In law, this theory is known as “legal realism”. Judges make up their minds on the basis of their prejudices and then rationalize their decisions by pretending to be bound by prior case law. One might call what happens with ideologies “political realism.” Persons make up their ideologies based on their times and their life situations.)

Yes, funny that, judges care about causation (well, that’s not actually Ben’s point, but what is his point? That the justice systems doesn’t work, or does it work dispense justice most of the time?), and you do too in the area of history, Ben.

Yet you’re pushing magic as an appropriate alternative to your causal methods in the biological realm, and you have absolutely no basis from which to do this.

Darwinism, the notion that the history of organisms was the story of the survival of the fittest and most hardy, and that organisms evolve because they are stronger and more dominant than others, is a perfect example of the age from which it came: the age of Imperialism.

Very selective there, Stein. You know very well that Newton’s was an age of slavery, plunder, colonialism, and religious bigotry. Yet you praise Newton and his science, while you rubbish Darwin’s science by association. That’s not honest in the least.

Anyway, at least capitalize properly. It’d be “Age of Imperialism” if you’re capitalizing “imperialism”, not “age of Imperialism.”

What is more, Darwinism as such fits your own political posture rather well, Ben, as you favor the haves over the have-nots.

When Darwin wrote, it was received wisdom that the white, northern European man was destined to rule the world. This could have been rationalized as greed–i.e., Europeans simply taking the resources of nations and tribes less well organized than they were.

Sure, and this differs from Newton’s time, how (I know it does differ, but how does it differ in a better manner?)? IOW, do you have a point that doesn’t undercut what you’ve written heretofore?

Anyway, as it happens, the capitalism of Victorian Britain is somewhat analogous to Darwinism (and is not actually very akin to traditional society, as we evolved to be more cooperative than Ben’s politics prescribes), and it may indeed have helped to give the right idea to Darwin. What of that? One has to get ideas from somewhere, the only real issue being the one that Ben avoids, the issue of evidence that so strongly supports evolutionary theory, and does not support the creationistic views that Ben and Ruloff wish to impose on science.

It could have been worked out as a form of amusement of the upper classes and a place for them to realize their martial fantasies. (Was it Shaw who called Imperialism “…outdoor relief for the upper classes?”)

So what’s your point? Are we supposed to throw out English science, since it was based in a non-politically correct economic system? Here’s Ben saying that Western culture must (selectively) go, due to its many sins. Very good, Ben, you’re now part of the ranks of thenihilists and bigots who fault civilization’s advances just because much of the past evil was retained for so long (and into the present, one might (or might not) argue).

But it fell to a true Imperialist,

Arguably, Stein is rather more an imperialist than upper-class Darwin was. Darwin didn’t much trouble with politics, he was one of the privileged Brits who dabbled in the sciences because it was very interesting and socially rewarded, not because it yielded any greatimperial or capitalist prizes. Indeed, a good deal of science was done that way, while Ben selectively condemns evolutionary science simply because he’s bigoted against it.

In his latest article "Darwinism: The Imperialism of Biology?" Ben Stein is criticised by Glen Davidson who wrote there seven successive long posts! I've put there my answer listing antidarwian scientists.

I am not sure there is so strong relation between darwinism and capitalism as Ben Stein claim, but the idea of "natural selection" is something really extraordinary and new. Ancient people living in connection with nature never observed it. But it is strongly supported from armchair intellectulas sitting at Universities in industrialised countries, scientists who wouldn't survive a day in countryard.

I'm starting to seriously doubt the Expelled bunch's commitment to allowing comments to run without censorship, though they did fairly well in the past. Btw, as others have apparently found, Dawkins' forum sucks too. Regardless, I'm now archiving the fisking I did of Ben's latest blog (there are a couple of repeats of posts):

(OK, I'll actually put the posts here when I can get through)

They are totally censoring what is allowed. I submitted my hear-rendering saga of the ID-Believing Double PhD publicly riduculed by a girl graduate student last week, and it is STILL not up, although they did send me an email that they received by story.

The email thanked Bill for his story.

--------------Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

I keep hoping someone will submit some short sob videos we can watch too.

If word got out that someone was soliciting stories of "mistreatment" by the International Science Conspiracy, and offering to put said stories in a movie, every wack-job on the Web would have sent them something this weekend.

Even among the 16 responses which got through before the Expelled inbox melted down, about a third are from the tinfoil-hat brigade. The rest are variants of "Darwinists made me fale english" or "they were so mean to me when I tried to preach the word in biology class."

We're not seeing anything at all from advocates of Dembskian, dont-mention-god ID.

<edited - inadvertently submitted before finishing>

--------------Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

I pray to the intelligent designer that they start including the poor me victim stories again. Several of them are howlers indeed. Some of the ones I submitted will be very funny if they ever get published.

I pray to the intelligent designer that they start including the poor me victim stories again. Several of them are howlers indeed. Some of the ones I submitted will be very funny if they ever get published.

Like any Raelian I recognize that the human race is the product of the Intelligent Designers who igners who we have been in contact with for decades. Everytime I tried to get the intelligent design promoters (William Dembski) and others at www.uncommondescent.com to at least consider the Intelligent Designer hwas discovered years ago I was ridiculed. They never once asked me for evidence or even considered the evidence. They ended up banning me and ALL my comments from their blog. Science is about discovery and evidence, no just towing the intelligent design party line.

Today I was expelled from the Uncommon Descent blog. All I was trying to do was talk about intelligent design in an intelligent way. I'm a Christian and a religion professor. Can you believe the sort of censorship this site is engaging in?

Plus a visitor from an alternate reality, where wheels are square, trout are allowed to vote, and:

Quote

I was allowed only 30 seconds to speak (I saved a written copy of my speech), but was able to point out that the top scientists in the world have all but thrown out the current theory of evolution. Only lower-level professors still teach it, and they ridicule those who think otherwise.

--------------Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers